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Studying in halls, University of Cambridge
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Reply 20
Helenia
Nah-uh. The MA ceremony converts your BA to an MA, so once you've got that you can only use the MA, not BA as well.


that seems reasonable. otherwise you'd write MA BA and look well impressive!

i'm sure that MA (Oxon/Cantab) indicates an honorary MA though. Could it be because a Masters that you do extra study for would be MSci, MLitt etc?
Studying in halls, University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
Cambridge
Reply 21
phishfood
that seems reasonable. otherwise you'd write MA BA and look well impressive!

i'm sure that MA (Oxon/Cantab) indicates an honorary MA though. Could it be because a Masters that you do extra study for would be MSci, MLitt etc?

i dont believe oxbridge offer any MA courses it tends to be MPhil and then DPhil etcetera , not sure about sciences though. Most employers for good graduate jobs will probably know that MA Cantab or Oxon doesn't mean anything and by the time you get your MA you've had 3 years work experience/further study which makes your degree slightly less relevant
TakemetoAvalon
So wait... I'm going to do NatSci... (Bio)

So I'll come out with a BA right? Then that gets upgraded to MA in a number of years...
I'm right in thinking I get a BA even though it's sciences, right?

So what if I do the 4th year option and come out with a master's anyway...??

I don't quite understand the honours bit - surely all the degrees obtained in Oxbridge are honours by default? So how do you define between honours and honourary? Oh dear.

So I can put BA (Cantab) after my degree? That tells the employer that my master's isn't really a masters... unless I've done the 4th year option which would then mean that it's real.... oh dear. :confused:

Yes. You get a BA. If you get a Master's you will have a BA and an MSci, but you can only do this on certain courses, mainly the physical science ones.

I think most of the degrees are with honours; you get one (as previously said) without honours if you do badly in your final year. I wouldn't :wink:

Yes, you put BA (Cantab) after your name until it gets upgraded; then it becomes MA (Cantab). Employers will almost certainly know about the Cambridge MA. I wouldn't worry about it, but if you want to do something actually requiring a Master's degree it's probably best to do an MPhil (the Cambridge postgrad master's degree; again it's MPhil whether you're arts or sciences) or an MSc.
notyourpunk
i dont believe oxbridge offer any MA courses it tends to be MPhil and then DPhil etcetera , not sure about sciences though. Most employers for good graduate jobs will probably know that MA Cantab or Oxon doesn't mean anything and by the time you get your MA you've had 3 years work experience/further study which makes your degree slightly less relevant

Absolutely.

It's MPhil for everything, sciences and arts :smile: Only the undergrad master's courses have different names.
Reply 24
MadNatSci
Absolutely.

It's MPhil for everything, sciences and arts :smile: Only the undergrad master's courses have different names.

this may sound dumb but where do MLitt and MBAs come into it
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/gsprospectus/subjects/summary.html seems to suggest that there are other things apart from MPhil - though im not sure if thats where your "Only the undergrad master's courses have different names" comes into it
Reply 25
notyourpunk
this may sound dumb but where do MLitt and MBAs come into it
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/gsprospectus/subjects/summary.html seems to suggest that there are other things apart from MPhil - though im not sure if thats where your "Only the undergrad master's courses have different names" comes into it


The MLitt is somewhere between an MPhil and a PhD - it's two years instead of the usual 1 year MPhil, but it's 1 or 2 years less than a PhD (and it doesn't have to constitute an original contribution to knowledge). The MSc is the science equivalent of the MLitt.

MBAs are effectively separate from other grad. degrees. They're taught courses rather than research-based, and they're business courses.
Oh god yeah, I'd forgotten the MBA. I never remember the Judge Institute :redface: Though I didn't know about MLitts at all!

I've always been told it's only an MPhil for science. The reporter only seems to list taught MPhil courses for sciences; if you do a PhD and your first year work isn't good enough to carry on with the PhD, but is good enough to qualify for an MPhil, I was told you got an MPhil then too... So I've always been under the impression that there was no MSc here (the MSci is the undergrad science master's).
Reply 27
hehe its all very confusing, im wondering if you can get BTh/MTh at cambridge like you can at oxford. it seems oxford have a few more degrees than cambridge as they also seem to have MSt as well and i think more that i cant recall
more info on the cam one is here:
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/degrees/ma/
Reply 29
THe reason about oxbridge degrees being MA and other university degrees being BA is all about the other universities trying to go their own way with their new system instead of just adopting the system which was in place hundreds of years ago (I.e the oxbridge one). Thats what ive been told.

In a sense kind of good they did because it makes an oxbridge degree look even better.
so if you have a 4-year degree for NatSci, then you come out with both a MA and Msci?
darkenergy
so if you have a 4-year degree for NatSci, then you come out with both a MA and Msci?

Six years after you've matriculated, yep.
MadNatSci
Six years after you've matriculated, yep.

oh cool, :cool:

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